ANI launched its online list, ANI-L, in 1994. Like a specialized ecological niche, ANI-L had acted as an incubator for Autistic culture, accelerating its evolution. In 1996, a computer programmer in the Netherlands named Martijn Dekker set up a list called Independent Living on the Autism Spectrum, or InLv. People with dyslexia, ADHD, dyscalculia, and a myriad of other conditions (christened “cousins” in the early days of ANI) were also welcome to join the list. InLv was another nutrient-rich tide pool that accelerated the evolution of autistic culture. The collective ethos of InLv, said writer and list member Harvey Blume in the New York Times in 1997, was “neurological pluralism.” He was the first mainstream journalist to pick up on the significance of online communities for people with neurological differences. “The impact of the Internet on autistics,” Blume predicted, “may one day be compared in magnitude to the spread of sign language among the deaf.”
Source: The neurodiversity movement: Autism is a minority group. NeuroTribes excerpt.
A triptych of triptychs for designing for neurological pluralism…
The cave, campfire, and watering hole archetypal learning spaces:
- Classroom UX: Designing for Pluralism
- Campfires, Caves and Watering holes – Libraries, Youth and the Digital Age
The red, yellow, and green of interaction badges:
The three level communication stack of distributed collaboration:
- How we Communicate at Automattic – WatirMelon
- The Three Speeds of Collaboration: Tool Selection and Culture Fit · Intense Minimalism
- Automattic has figured out the right tools for remote working — Quartz
Living Privately. - Building and maintaining a sense of what to show in each social environment. - Discovering and creating new environments in which we can show more of ourselves. - Assessing where you can grow new parts of yourself which aren’t (yet) for public display.
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